Olivia, Lucas and a group of their college friends travel to Mexico for one last getaway before graduation. While there, a stranger convinces one of the students to play a seemingly harmless game of truth or dare with the others. Once the game starts, it awakens something evil — a demon which forces the friends to share dark secrets and confront their deepest fears. The rules are simple but wicked — tell the truth or die, do the dare or die, and if you stop playing, you die.

Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare is good.

It’s like including the Blumhouse bit is a seal of freshness* these days, because I can see how a movie about college kids trapped in a murderous game of Truth or Dare might be an exercise in cheap scares and even cheaper effects. Add the name Blumhouse and you get the opposite, a horror movie that, in spite of its PG-13 rating, is effective and original. There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s get to it.

The film is exactly what the tagline and trailer says it is, but it’s also so much more. It has some unique kills, strong dramatic tension and surprisingly emotional depth and heart to it. Director Jeff Wadlow uses sly camera angles and the score to help these along, a lingering shot of two characters indicates a hidden lust here or the beaming face of the girlfriend in full frame while the possibly unfaithful boyfriend has his back to us. It’s well done and carefully considered choices like this that subtly let us into our protagonists lives. It’s moments like these that make Wadlow’s kills so strong, he subscribes to the less is more school of thought in this film and his deaths are quick, brutal and poignant. Not a death is wasted, all of them help to further the plot and provide us with a resolution that not only comments on society as a whole, but is a lesson in abject hypocrisy. It’s that ending, especially when coupled with a previous exchange in the beginning of the film, that made the whole thing worth watching for me.

Admittedly, there are a few faults in logic and way over the top melodrama but that is to be expected in a film that is aimed the current group adolescents, teens, tweens, and preteens. To give it some context, this is this generations Final Destination. Far different in execution but similar in theme, young folks confronting death and doing whatever they can to escape. Along the way, it speaks to its target audience about happiness, hooking up, cheating and all that drama, getting old (them younger children really find the elderly unnerving), and whether or not you have what it takes to be a great person or are you the ultimate friend. Technology is referenced and utilized and the whole thing will most definitely resonate with the crowd in that regard as well. In short it’s a perfect date night flick for you college kids. So go see that movie instead of bothering me and stay my lawn, you little monsters!

And yes, while today’s disaffected youth runs to get tickets, I can tell those who are left that this is truly solid and effective horror film absolutely worth a watch if you have some time for it this weekend. It’s a supernatural horror with a lot to say about today’s youth culture, technology, and our overwhelming need to be connected and true to our friends—specifically the lengths to which we go to protect them, even if they might not need protecting. Jeff Wadlow has turned in a product unlike anything he has done before and might be declaring himself as a candidate new Master of Horror (he’d be joining a list that includes fellow newcomers the likes of James Wan, Mike Flanagan and Andy Muschietti). I may be overstating a lot, but I was consistently shocked by how high quality this film was, far exceeding my expectations going (far better than it any reason to be, is what kept running through my mind. It’s true, this is a hokey concept but done with a 100% serious bent). This was a very fun and very fun flick, full of originality that the die hard horror hound can appreciate while still being familiar enough not turn off the broader audiences and I can say unequivocally that is absolutely worth any your time you’d like to spare.

This film has solidified that Blumhouse knows horror. I will give anything they are willing to put their name on a fair shake from this point forward.

In the near-future, technology controls nearly all aspects of life. Within this setting, a technophobe avenges his wife’s murder – and his own paralysis-causing injury – with the help of an experimental computer chip implant called “Stem.”

From Leigh Whannell, visionary creator of SAW and INSIDIOUS, UPGRADE is in theaters June 1st.